


Eden

by branwyn



Series: Strange Bright Crowds (Jessica lives 'verse) [1]
Category: Person of Interest (TV)
Genre: Backstory, F/M, Pre-Canon, Terrible Jokes, romantic fluff with just a little angst for flavor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-14
Updated: 2020-06-14
Packaged: 2021-03-04 07:47:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,545
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24710098
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/branwyn/pseuds/branwyn
Summary: John wonders how soon is too soon to tell someone you’ve fallen in love with them.
Relationships: Jessica Arndt/John Reese
Series: Strange Bright Crowds (Jessica lives 'verse) [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1638598
Comments: 8
Kudos: 23
Collections: Exchange of Interest 2020





	Eden

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Aragarna](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aragarna/gifts).



_Tacoma  
May, 2001_

They mostly see each other when it’s dark. John is stationed at Fort Lewis, nine miles away from Tacoma, where Jessica works late shifts in the ER at St. Joseph’s. Since their third date, John has been meeting her in the parking lot in the wee hours of the morning with breakfast in a bag. He doesn’t sleep much anymore, but sleep is the least of the sacrifices he’d make to see her.

John is twenty-nine, and he’s lived in and around the Puget Sound his whole life. He’s never traveled, except with the army. Jessica’s a couple of years younger but she’s adventurous, independent. She grew up back East, and says she only took the job in Tacoma because it’s easier to ignore her parents’ nagging if she doesn’t have to see them every day.

“Is this acting out?” he asked once. “Am I your rebellious phase?”

“Mmm, no. That was moving out here. You’re more like the Ferrari I boosted to go joyriding in.”

“A Ferrari?” John was delighted.

They like to sit in deck chairs on the roof of Jessica’s building and watch the stars fade out, see the sun come up over the water in the distance. The city is far away and quiet from up here. Jessica says she can smell the ocean. John can’t. Maybe smell isn’t his best sense.

“Oh yeah, what’s your best sense then?” Jessica asks, mocking him playfully.

“Definitely touch,” says John, running a hand down the long curve of her back.

John likes to listen to Jessica talk. She’s smart, she was in school for years. She’s been places. She understands how things fit together, make the bigger picture. She’d be a good officer.

“That’s an idea,” says Jessica. “I’ll join the army. They always need nurses, right? I said no to enough recruiters when I was in school.”

“Did you?” 

“Yeah, you know what they’re like.”

He shrugs. “Nobody recruited me,” he says. “A couple of years after graduation, I got into some trouble, and a judge gave me a choice.”

“What the hell did you do?”

“Well, remember how we first met?”

There was a bar fight last fall. Some asshole kid from U Dub tried breaking a bottle over John’s head. Jess had cleaned him up afterwards. 

“I didn’t realize getting into bar fights was such a bad habit with you.”

“Only when not getting into a fight isn’t an option.”

She rolls her eyes. John loves it when she rolls her eyes at him. He loves everything he knows about her, even her terrible jokes.

“Hey, Jess.” He pokes her arm. “Tell me a joke.”

“No.” She shakes her head. “You just want to laugh at me.”

John gives her an innocent look. “They’re jokes.”

“That isn't why you laugh!”

John rolls onto his back, grinning up at her. The night sky stretches overhead with its handful of visible stars. “Please,” he says.

Her lips purse. “Okay, why don’t you ever see a hippopotamus hiding in a tree?”

He shakes his head. “No idea.”

“Because they’re really good at hiding.”

“Okay.” John nods slowly. “Makes sense.”

“What kind of shoes do ninjas wear?” Jessica blinks at him with her big brown eyes.

“Um…”

“Sneakers.”

“Right, yeah. I mean, obviously.”

“What time is it when you have to go to the dentist?” Suddenly, they’re both in the same deck chair. Jessica looms over him on her hands and knees, gets right in his face. _“Tooth-hurtie.”_

John stays stoic for three more seconds, then cracks up all at once. “Oh my God,” he groans from behind his hands, and Jessica snorts, collapsing on top of him.

“This is 100% your fault, mister, you got what you deserve.”

He sobers up a little. “No, I definitely don’t deserve you. I’ll take you, though. I’m selfish like that.”

“You, selfish? Mr. ‘My only regret is that I have but one life to give for my country’?”

“Actually, these days I’m giving some serious thought to not dying.”

“Yeah?” A slow smile spreads over Jessica’s face. “Good.”

She lies on her back next to him, pressed up close to his side. John stretches his arm out so she has somewhere to rest her head. 

“I was thinking,” she says, after a moment. The radio is playing behind them, something pretty but sad. “I’ve got this weekend off. If you wanted we could drive up to Sumner, take some flowers up to your folks in the cemetery.”

John swallows. “Not exactly where I was thinking of us going on our next date,” he says.

“You don’t want to?”

“Not what I meant.” 

“Then let’s go. The rose bushes in my back yard are blooming, I’ll cut enough for everyone.”

He turns his head, just looks at her for a moment. She’s so beautiful. The first time he saw her she was sitting at a table having drinks with her friends. Most of them were wearing scrubs, just like most of the guys John was sitting with were in uniform. One woman was talking, crying, and while John watched, Jessica had reached over and grabbed her hand. 

He’s no poet. He can’t really explain why it got to him. But she was beautiful, and she helped people all day long at her job, and now she was being kind to her friend, and all those things put together made John think, _she’s the reason I’m trying to save the world._

And then a fight broke out, and John got distracted when some coked up frat boy started waving a broken bottle in his face.

Afterwards, John was hunched in a booth, clutching his bloody head, when suddenly Jessica appeared and began ordering him around like his first drill sergeant. _Hold this,_ she’d said, _stay still, apply pressure._ She’d cleaned him up and taped him together, and John had asked her out while her gloved hands were still covered in his blood. 

From a distance he’d thought she was fragile. Deep down, though, she’s got a soul like old leather.

“Speaking of the folks,” says John, combing the tips of his fingers through her silky hair. “You still planning to go back East for Memorial Day?” 

There was some kind of family reunion in New Jersey that Jessica’s mom wanted her to attend, a giant catered picnic for a hundred people that took over an entire park for the day. There were bouncy castles for the kids and beer coolers for the adults. John thinks it sounds more like a county fair than a family gathering, but even when he was a kid the family he had wouldn’t have filled a big kitchen, let alone a park.

“Yeah, probably. If I don’t, I’ll never hear the end of it.”

John doesn’t say anything. He understands that Jessica’s relationship with her family is complicated, even if he isn’t sure why. He doesn't presume to give her advice. 

Jessica’s studying him, eyes sharp and mischievous. “You want to come with me?” she says.

“Really?” His heart is suddenly beating louder in his chest. “You want me to?”

He’d met Sharon, her mom, when she flew out to visit in the spring. She didn’t like him. To his face, she’d been polite, even charming, but John could see her getting a little cooler and more reserved the more he told her about himself. John hadn’t blamed her, though. If he had a daughter like Jess, he wouldn’t think some random grunt was good enough for her either.

“I think it’s about time my family got the message that you’re gonna be sticking around,” says Jessica. Then she rolls onto her side facing him. “You’re still planning to stick around, right?” 

They’ve only been dating for a few months. John wonders how soon is too soon to tell someone you’ve fallen in love with them.

“I’m not going anywhere,” John promises. “Except New Jersey, I guess.”

“Ugh, and that’s going to be our first trip together. No, I know.” She sits up, grinning. “Let’s go away, let’s go to, uh...Mexico.”

“Really? Why Mexico?”

“I was going to say Florida, but I bet Mexico is nicer.”

“I have some leave coming up in September.”

“Yeah? September would be perfect.”

“You’re perfect,” says John, because he likes the way it makes her blush and roll her eyes at the same time. He likes that they spend half their time together saying dumb things to make each other laugh. Everything else in his life is do-or-die, _the fate of the world rests in your hands, soldier._

Jess makes him feel safe. She makes him feel real. Everything is easy and warm and good with her, and that’s why John knows, deep down, that he’ll lose her eventually. 

“Hey.” She reaches out to touch his face. John shuts his eyes and she taps his forehead gently. “I don’t know where you just went in there, but come back.”

The night air is soft on his skin, and the moonlight is cool against his eyelids. All the warmth in his universe comes from Jessica, stretched out beside him, tracing the lines of his face with the tip of her finger. 

“I’m right here,” he tells her, like a promise. “I’m not going anywhere.”


End file.
